What is Copyright????

For my blog post on copyright I chose to read the article "The Purpose of Copyright" by Lydia Pallas Loren. According to this article the purpose copyright law is expressly spelled out in the Constitution. That goal is to "promote the process of knowledge and learning." Before reading this article I did not really know that much about copyright, or any history behind how we got to where we are today. This article did a good job of explaining how we got to where we are today and the current problems that are facing copyrights.

After reading this article I saw that I was one of the general public that has been led to believe that the main purpose of copyrights is to protect the work that people have done. But this article shows that the framers of the Constitution thought of copyright laws as a way spur discoveries and innovation. Recently all new copyright reform that has been enacted has benefited the holders of the copyright and has not done much to protect the people that use the work to innovate, or do something for the public good.

As teachers I think that it is important to remember that many, if not all, of the material that you use in class is based on someone else's work. Most of it though is meant for educational uses through workbooks and things like that. Where teachers need to be careful is when playing videos, or using material that is outside of the normal class curriculum. After reading the article it seems that most educational uses are protected under the Fair Use Act. But it is always a good idea to get permission before using someone else's work. For students it is important that they know when they use a source for a paper or project that they correctly site it. It is important for teachers to teach students about the proper ways to cite sources, and when they need to do it. Because if they do not learn the proper citation rules when they are young it can lead to much bigger problems as they enter high school and college.